


Under My Skin

by solafiamma



Category: Popslash
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-08-20
Updated: 2004-08-20
Packaged: 2017-10-18 22:20:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/193926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solafiamma/pseuds/solafiamma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Part of today's story started out as my submission to last year's Shake the Disease challenge, but that started to veer into angst (which doesn't exactly meet the criteria for a happy!fic challenge. I abandoned that story, but borrowed a few threads of the idea to write something for that kind soul who bought me some lj time a while ago (and who is probably wondering why they bothered, at this point), and the result is this -- a story that probably actually would have met the happy!fic criteria. Just one of life's little ironies. <i>August, 2004</i></p><p>Disclaimer: Fiction ahead, people. Not a word of truth.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Under My Skin

**Author's Note:**

> Part of today's story started out as my submission to last year's Shake the Disease challenge, but that started to veer into angst (which doesn't exactly meet the criteria for a happy!fic challenge. I abandoned that story, but borrowed a few threads of the idea to write something for that kind soul who bought me some lj time a while ago (and who is probably wondering why they bothered, at this point), and the result is this -- a story that probably actually would have met the happy!fic criteria. Just one of life's little ironies. _August, 2004_
> 
> Disclaimer: Fiction ahead, people. Not a word of truth.

“Terrific, Lance. Thanks, that was just great. Do you mind stepping outside for a few minutes while I have a few words with the guys? We won’t be long.” 

Lou waved toward the door, and Chris watched as the kid smiled his tentative, polite little smile around the room before leaving. Dork, he thought to himself in irritation. Quite possibly the dorkiest looking kid Chris had ever seen.

“So.” Lou turned to face them, rubbing his hands together and looking as pleased with himself as if he’d just invented waffles or crotchless panties. “What do you think? A little rough around the edges, I know, maybe even a bit  -“

“Hickish?” Chris supplied helpfully. “A bit of a rube, perhaps? A good ole down home dork?”

“Hey! Shut up, Chris!” Justin had bumped into Lance in the foyer before the audition, and they must have done some secret-handshake teen bonding or something because now he was treating Lance like he was his own personal discovery instead of some gooby little wannabe boybander whose mama was probably paying sizeable kickbacks to Justin’s old vocal coach to get her baby on stage. Jesus wept. “I thought he was great. Way, way better than any of the others. What was wrong with him?”

“Can’t dance worth shit,” Joey said, “but his voice is perfect. Just what we’re looking for.”

“He’s, like, twelve years old, for Christ’s sake.” Chris glared around the room. “Jesus. What are we, the frickin’Osmonds?”

“He’s older than me,” Justin said. “Are you saying I’m too young for the band? Is that what you’re saying? You want to kick me out, too?”

“Yeah, kinda. Would you fuck off, please?”

“Fuck you, Chris.” Justin spun his chair until he was facing away from Chris, folding his arms across his chest and sticking his lower lip out in an irritated pout.

“Fuck you back, you big baby.”

“He is older than Justin, though,” Joey said. “I don’t really think age is an issue, is it? I’m more worried about the dancing. He kind of sucks, and he’d have some mega catching up to do. And he seemed a bit shy, maybe. That could be a problem.”

“Who the fuck dresses him? I mean, what the hell, man. Did Erkel die and leave him his wardrobe or what? He looks like the by-blow of an unfortunate encounter between Opie and the farmer’s daughter.”

Justin giggled, then wrinkled his brow and looked at JC. “Um. What’s a by-blow? And who’s Opie?”

“A by-blow’s-“ JC started.

“When you get your cock sucked by some dude who does chicks, too.” Chris finished.

“Chris!” Lou was turning that spectacular shade of purple that always made Chris feel like he’d accomplished something important. “May I remind you there are minors in the room? Can we keep this professional, please?”

Chris just grinned at him. Lou was such a hypocrite. He swore like a sailor with a bad case of crabs himself, but he liked to think “his boys” had mouths as clean as Ivory soap.

“That doesn’t make sense, though.” Justin narrowed his eyes at Chris. “What you said. It doesn’t make sense.”

Joey gave Justin’s hand a patronizing pat. “Chris just meant he dresses funny, that’s all. We’ll explain the big words later.”

“Asshole. Fuck off. Sorry,” he mumbled, glancing at Lou. Justin hated being thought of as unprofessional.

“What Chris means,” Chris said, “is that the kid is an embarrassment, a total fucking emabarrassment. How could we possibly perform in public with something that looks like him? We’d be laughingstocks. I can’t even understand why they let him out of Mississippi. Aren’t there laws against exporting natural disasters across state lines?”

“No, no! I could fix him!” Justin was bouncing up and down with excitement. “I could! I totally could! I’ll show him what to wear and how to dress, and I’ll teach him how to be cool and shit. I really want to! Please, Lou, can’t we keep him?”

“We’ll buy you a Barbie. Now shut up. He’s too shy.” Chris looked to Joey for support. “Like you said, Joe. You gottahave chutzpah to do what we do, right? I don’t think he’s got it. No guts at all. He’d flake out at the first sign of pressure, and then we’d be right back at the beginning.”

“Well, though,” Joey said, “He did come all the way out here to audition, knowing he was gonna have to dance, and he must have known he was shitty at it. That takes guts, I guess.”

“His mom made him. You can totally tell. He’s a mother fuckin’ mama’s boy.”

“Justin’s a mama’s boy.”

“Shut up, Joey! I am not!”

“And you’re a mama’s boy too, when you get right down to it, Chris.”

“Yeah, well, you’re a stupid twat, Fatone. So what?”

Lou sighed and turned to JC. “You’ve been pretty quiet. I suppose it would be too much to hope that you have something useful to add to this discussion?” 

“Mm.” JC glanced at Chris, shrugged and looked back at Lou. “Well. Justin and Joey are right. He’s got the voice. He catches on quickly. And he doesn’t think he knows it all. The rest will come. He’s in.”

“Hey!” Chris shrieked in outrage. “You don’t get to make that decision, Chasez! Who the fuck said it was your call?”

“He’s got the voice, Chris, and we need someone right now. I’ll teach him to dance. Justin said he’ll help him figure out how to dress. You’re just being an asshole, dude. What’s your problem?”

Chris glowered at him for a couple of minutes, then looked down at his knees. He kind of wanted to yell some more because, what the hell, who did JC think he was, anyway, but JC was right. All the problems Chris raised were probably fixable over time, and they could work around them in the meantime. There was something, though, something just not right about Lance. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he could feel it tickling his guts like bad seafood, and he knew deep, deep down that the kid was going to be a problem.

He looked up at the guys, and they were all looking back at him, waiting. If Chris was really set against Lance, he knew the others wouldn’t insist, not even JC. They’d be mad as hell, but they’d go along with his decision, because they knew this was something they all had to agree on. It had taken a lot of time and effort to start feeling like a group again after Jason had left, and nobody wanted to mess that up. 

And maybe that was all this was. Maybe he was just afraid that a new person would upset the delicate balance they’d found. Maybe he was just feeling grumpy about having to go through another round of adjustment and fine tuning.Maybe.

Whatever. JC was right. There really was no justification for rejecting Lance. They had a gig booked in a couple of weeks, more after that, and there just wasn’t time to dick around with more auditions. 

“Yeah, okay, fine. He’s in. Just don’t blame me if he turns out to be some baby-faced, deep south, serial killing maniac, and you guys start to disappear one by one.”

JC reached over and patted his knee. “I think you’ll probably be the first to go, man.”

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Lance settled into the group like a river over rocks, the transition so smooth and effortless and unobtrusive that within a couple of weeks his absence would have been far more jarring than his presence. 

He wasn’t as shy as they’d first thought. In fact, Chris didn’t think he was shy at all, just maybe not as in love with the spotlight as the rest of them. For the first couple of weeks, he was quiet and polite, not volunteering much information about himself, but answering most of the questions put to him agreeably enough. 

He wasn’t a baby about being teased, which surprised Chris because he’d totally had Lance pegged as one of thoseweinery victim kids who’d run crying home to mommy whenever the big boys got too mean. The first couple of times Chris let loose on him, Lance didn’t react much at all, just blinked his eyes and smiled a small, pensive smile. By the end of the first week, though, he wasn’t taking shit from anyone. Especially Chris. And the boy knew how to fight back, you had to give him that. He’d match Chris insult for insult, and even if his comebacks weren’t too quick and were often pretty lame, Lance and Justin always seemed to find them vastly amusing. When Chris took things too far, which he always managed to do, Lance never thumped him like Joey did or got that incredulous hurt look on his face that JC did or threw a tantrum like Justin did. He’d just narrow his eyes, call Chris an asshole in a voice cold enough to freeze spit and leave the room. A couple of mornings later, when Chris sat down at the breakfast table, fifteen spiders would leap out of the Fruit Loops box and into his cereal bowl. Or he’d come home late at night, slide into bed and find himself lying in a congealed mess of baked beans and scrambled eggs. Lance could be a real shit that way. It was one of the things Chris liked best about him. 

Justin was bitterly disappointed when Lance declined his offer to become his personal shopper. Lance listened attentively while Justin described at length the transformation he had in mind and enumerated the essential items currently missing from Lance’s wardrobe, but when Justin finally subsided, Lance just shook his head politely and said, “Oh, thanks, but that won’t be necessary. Lou’s already given me some suggestions. But thanks anyway.” 

There was no fault to find with his work ethic, either. Lance worked himself to the point of exhaustion to catch up on the choreography, going over and over the moves for hours on end with JC or Justin. 

In spite of all this, and in spite of the fact that he was actually starting to like Lance, Chris still felt a vague flutter of unease about his presence in the group. There was something not quite right about him, he was sure of it, even if he couldn’t quite pin it down. Mostly, though, he didn’t think about it a great deal, what with trying to hold down two jobs and rehearsing every day. It wasn’t like there weren’t plenty of other things to distract him. It was always there, though, slapping away in the back of his mind like a moth at the window, something to ponder late at night when he was still too keyed up from the day to sleep.

Lance wound up sharing a room with Chris just because Jason had and nobody really thought to change the arrangement. He was almost always asleep when Chris got home, which wasn’t surprising given how late that usually was and how hard Lance had been working. Feeling like a burglar, Chris would sneak into the bedroom in his sock feet and tip toe over to his own bed where he’d sit and study Lance in the warm half light of the table lamp. In sleep, as in so many other things, Lance managed to surprise him. Chris would have picked him for a curl-up-in-a-foetal-position-huddle-under-the-blankets kind of guy and was always a little bit startled to find him sprawled, sometimes on his back and sometimes on his stomach, usually on top of the covers, limbs outstretched to claim the maximum possible surface area. 

Once in a while he wore pyjamas, even though Chris mocked them mercilessly, but mostly he preferred boxers and a t-shirt. He should have looked cute or endearing, like Chris’ sisters did when they were asleep, like Justin did. He should have looked vulnerable, like somebody waiting to be tickled and, faced with those accessible armpits and ribs, Chris should have felt an irresistible compulsion to oblige.

But Chris didn’t want to tickle him. Well, maybe a little bit, but not nearly as much as he would have expected. He couldn’t understand it at all. If it had been Joey or JC or Justin lying there, armpits so invitingly exposed, he would have tickled them by now, no question. What made Lance so different? 

This was the kind of question he puzzled over as he sat on his bed and stared at Lance. Whatever was bothering him, whatever was inherently wrong with Lance, he was pretty sure it had to be tied somehow to this untickleability. 

One night, after a fruitless half-hour of watching Lance without arriving at any satisfactory answers, it occurred to Chris that perhaps he was approaching this problem from entirely the wrong direction. What if, instead of asking himself why he didn’t want to tickle Lance, he should be asking what he did want to do with him. Did he want to put gum in his hair, maybe? Roll him up in the carpet and set him out on the front porch? Hit him? Tie his ankles together so he’d fall flat on his face when he rolled out of bed in the morning?

None of these things seemed quite right, but there was promise there. He was getting closer, he could feel it. He stood up and crept toward Lance’s bed, squatting down when he was only a few inches away.

As if sensing the disturbance in the air around him, Lance twitched and made a soft noise in his throat, something between a sigh and a groan, but also a little bit like dice rolling into each other in a felt-lined box. A funny little noise.Lance made a lot of funny little noises when he was sleeping, and Chris had become quite adept at recognizing which sounds indicated a shift toward waking, and which just floated out of his dreams like intermittent flakes of mental dandruff. This one wasn’t a waking noise, though, so Chris relaxed back onto his haunches. Lance lay in his usual untidy sprawl on top of the bed, the blankets beneath him undisturbed as though he hadn’t even had the energy to make a pretence of climbing under them. He was wearing a white t-shirt and a pair of vivid yellow boxers patterned with little black ducks -- stupid looking, Chris thought, much like every other item in Lance’s wardrobe.

Chris watched until his ankles started to cramp, waiting for a revelation, waiting for the right question to come to him. Did he want to dip Lance’s fingertips into a glass of water and hold them there until he peed? Maybe, a bit. Did he want to find a black felt marker and write “My heart belongs to Mommy” all over Lance’s pristine white t-shirt? Well, sure, sort of. Did he want to shave off one of his eyebrows? Yeah, well, who wouldn’t, really? Did he want to pinch Lance’s cheeks? Actually, yes. Quite a bit. Chris felt a ping of excitement. He was definitely on the right track.

He nodded happily at Lance’s sleeping face. Yep. Those cheeks could sure use a good pinching. He could feel it in the tips of his fingers, the satisfaction of skin between thumb and knuckle. He could picture Lance’s eyes flying open in shock. That would be nice, too. Lance’s eyes would be huge, pale green and eerie in this dim light, they’d take up almost his whole face. He’d be shocked to find Chris right there, so close, less than a hand’s reach away, and he’d probably leap backward towards the wall. Chris would anticipate this, though, he’d grab hold of Lance before he could move, just reach out and wrap his arm around Lance’s waist to hold him in place, and Chris’ wrist would be there, right there against that narrow ribbon of exposed skin. The skin would be smooth as silk, hot against Chris’ pulse, and Chris would maybe slide his arm a little higher, maybe up under that white t-shirt a ways, until his whole hand was enveloped by the heat trapped beneath it, or maybe a little lower until his fingers were an inch or two below the waistband of Lance’s dorky duck shorts. And, yes. That was it, that was what Chris wanted to do to Lance, that was it exactly, and.

Oh. Fucking. Hell.

Chris reared back so suddenly he lost his balance, and the next thing he knew, he was looking at the ceiling with a thudding pain in the back of his head and his heart slamming like a ball peen hammer against his ribs. There was an odd, high-pitched wheezing sound coming from somewhere in the room that turned out to be his mouth. When he felt something pointy poke him gently in the stomach, he actually screamed.

“Chris?”

“Fuck.”

“Chris? You okay?”

“Fuck. Fuckety bejesus, holy, fuck me, fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“What are you doing down there? You okay?”

Lance’s voice was deep and throaty, rough with sleep. It hung in the air like something tangible, slid into Chris’ ears and shimmied its way straight down to his dick.

“I. Uh. What? Go back to sleep, dude. I’m just. Uh. Callisthenics. Shut up. You should just shut up and go back to sleep. And use a blanket, for fuck’s sake. You’ll freeze your nuts off. Which, just for the record, I don’t care if you do. It’s just. Anybody could walk in here. They don’t need to see this. Those boxers are, like, totally stupid. What are you, ten?”

Lance’s eyes wouldn’t shut. He kept goggling like Chris was the most entertaining program he’d ever watched, and it was just unnerving. 

“Go to sleep, god damn it.” Chris stumbled to his feet. “I’m gonna. I need to. Oh, fuck off. Go to sleep.”

He lunged for the door, wrestled it with it for a few frantic minutes before remembering that it opened inward, threw it open and propelled himself into the hallway like a spitwad off an elastic band. He shot himself out with such force that he rebounded off the opposite wall and back into the bedroom, before he finally managed to achieve the safety of the hall. 

A little voice in his brain was chanting, “oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, fuck, fuck,” in steady counterpoint to another, increasingly insistent voice, that was starting to chime in with, “Booze. Now. Booze. Right now.” He headed straight for the kitchen and the bottle of whiskey Lynn kept stashed underneath the sink, next to the Drano and the Comet. There was an unspoken agreement between the two moms and Chris, Joey and JC that, while any beer or wine left in the fridge was pretty much fair game, Lynn’s private stash was absolutely hands off. This was an emergency, though. Lynnwould understand, not that he’d ever tell her. And he’d replace it tomorrow. If Lynn and Diane had already polished it off, he was going to have to set their toes on fire.

But no, there it was, a bottle of Johnny Walker red label, which, who could stand the stuff really, except it was there and 80 proof, so yeah. Beggars and choosers and all that shit. Chris poured a couple of inches worth into a water glass, considered it critically for a few seconds and topped it up with another inch. Medicinal. For his impending coronary. Lynnwould understand.

He downed half of it in one dazzling swallow that seared his throat and made his eyes weep but it helped his pulse rate slow to an acceptable level. Trying very hard not to think at all, he carried the glass over to the kitchen table and sat down. His whole body felt weak and shaky like he’d been running for hours, and he was cold all over except in his throat and gut where the whiskey fire kept up a steady burn.

Christ. This was so unbelievably fucked up. How could he have missed this? How could it possibly have escaped his notice that the reason Lance made him uncomfortable was that Chris wanted to screw him into the middle of next week? Holy hell. He couldn’t have figured this out sooner? Like from the moment he’d met him? Because even JC would have had to agree that letting some not even hot kid that Chris apparently wanted to fuck into the band would be a pretty stupid idea.

Chris swallowed another burning mouthful of whiskey and, when that didn’t help, banged his head twice against the top of the table. What was he going to do? It was way too late to kick Lance out now. They needed him, and besides, Chris didn’t event want to anymore. He liked Lance, they all did; Lance belonged to them now.

Somehow he had to discover a way to not find Lance hot, which he totally wasn’t anyway, he really wasn’t, so what was the big deal? He stared at the Formica table top for a few minutes, chewing his fingernails and sipping his whiskey. His eyes fell on a notepad on the table that either Diane or Lynn had been using to start a grocery list. Hamburger Helper. Ground beef. Kraft Dinner. Pop Tarts. Lynn, then. He pulled the notepad over, flipped to a fresh page, and wrote:

Why I Don’t Like Lance (that way):

1.       He’s sixteen.  
2.       He’s not even hot, just a bit pretty. Sort of.  
3.       He wears stupid clothes. Really stupid clothes.  
4.       His jokes are even lamer than Justin’s.  
5.       Diane would kill me.  
6.       JC would castrate me. Joey and Justin would probably hold me down.  
7.       I’d castrate myself. He’s only sixteen.  
8.       He likes country music. The really bad kind.  
9.       I’m not a pervert.  
10.     He’s probably not even gay, and even if he is and even if we did something, it would just be a passing thing for him because he’s only sixteen and then he’d dump me in two weeks which I wouldn’t really care about because whatever, and he’s not even hot, but still.

When he’d finished, Chris scowled at his list and then read it back to himself three or four times, committing it to memory. He tore the page out of the notepad, tore it into narrow strips and tore all the strips into tiny little squares. He did the same to the next three pages as well, just to be on the safe side, and then gathered all the little scraps and shoved them deep into the bowels of the trash can. If he’d had a match on him, he might have lit the whole thing on fire, but as it was he settled for upending one of the potted plants into the can and pouring a couple of cupfuls of grape Kool-Aid on top. 

Perfect. Problem solved. Lists were like magic, he’d discovered

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

No matter how hard Chris tried to convince himself to the contrary, the list didn’t make any difference. Not one bit.

He was still on edge around Lance, but now it was even worse because he knew what was causing it. Lance was like a bad rash that no amount of calamine lotion could get rid of. It didn’t help that, as the months went by, Lance didn’t get any uglier. His dorkiness, on the other hand, seemed to increase exponentially, so things really should have balanced out. Except they didn’t. No matter how many times he reviewed his mental copy of the list, Chris had to admit that in spite of the fact that it made no sense whatsoever, he had it bad for Lance. Obviously, if there was a god, he hated Chris, and you just couldn’t fight that kind of thing.

It could have been worse. Chris had worried at first that any physical contact with Lance would be awkward, which would never have worked because Chris touched people a lot. What with the pinching, slapping, wrestling, and tossing people across rooms, not to mention the dancing, he found his hands on all the guys a good portion of each day. It would have looked weird if he just stopped touching Lance. People would have noticed. As it turned out, it just wasn’t an issue. When he knocked Lance’s feet out from under him and tickled him till he shrieked, or sat on his stomach and pushed handfuls of cold Spaghetti-Os into his mouth, or crept up behind him and yanked his boxers down in the hallway, he didn’t even think about taking it any further. He did the same thing to all the guys when the opportunity presented itself. 

Really, there were large chunks of the day when Chris didn’t even remember he had a thing for Lance. The only time it was an issue at all was in those rare moments when his body and brain happened to be at rest at the same time, and then just, boom, out of the blue, it would hit him all over again. Like in the morning, glancing across the breakfast table, and there Lance would be, all rumpled and bleary-eyed and ridiculously appealing, and Chris would have the urge to drag him back upstairs to the bedroom. Or during a break in rehearsal when Justin or JC or sometimes both of them would be coaching Lance through another set of moves, and the sight of their hands on his body would suddenly startle Chris to attention, and he wouldn’t know whether to hide his eyes or stare until they popped out of his head. The worst times were at night, though, sitting in the bedroom and struggling to ignore Lance laid out like a gift on the other bed.

Fortunately, there weren’t too many moments of rest in Chris’ life, and even fewer once they arrived in Europe. For one thing, they didn’t always share a room anymore. For another, their schedule was insane, a relentless blur of rehearsal, performance, interviews, road trips and lectures from management. It was crazy and exhausting, but exhilarating at the same time. They were really going to make it, Chris could feel it; he’d seldom been more certain of anything. 

There were a billion and one distractions to keep his mind off Lance, and Chris had always been easily distracted. After a while, the whole attraction thing became easier to push into the back of his mind. Like a ghost in the basement -- you only really noticed it when you wennt down to look for the toolkit; other than that it was just a vague presence humming away in your subconscious. 

It helped also that none of the guys had any idea bout his stupid crush thing, or whatever it was, even Lance. They were used to Chris being weird, and if he occasionally lost the power of speech when Lance bent over in front of him, or had to leave the room suddenly when Lance emerged from the bathroom wrapped only in a towel, nobody thought to question it. If one of the guys caught him staring fixedly at Lance and raised their eyebrows, he’d say, “Just trying to figure out how to get him back for those snails in my coat pocket,” and they’d nod and grin and accept it.

It turned out that Lance was gay. He came out to them after a performance one night in Berlin when they were all getting changed in a dinky, dingy dressing room which, judging by the smell, more than one person had mistaken for a urinal. In the middle of an argument about who was entitled to the last sausage roll, Justin looked at Lance and said, “You don’t talk about girls much. Are you gay?” 

Joey choked on a mouthful of water, and JC waved his hand in Justin’s face in a belated shushing motion. Chris thought about turning it into a joke, but before he had a chance, Lance said, “Uh huh” and went back to tying his shoelaces. When he finished, he looked up at them calmly. “That’s not a problem, right? Don’t tell my mom, though. She’s still getting used to me being in a band, she doesn’t need any more stress right now.” 

JC gave Lance a hug and said a bunch of sappy stuff about unconditional love and how he himself was actually beyond gender identification, after which he looked pointedly at Chris, who pointedly ignored him. Chris knew he should tell Lance that he liked guys, too, at least as much as he liked girls, but he wasn’t sure he could get the words out without giving too much away. When Joey gave him an encouraging poke in the ribs, gently at first, and then hard enough to make him squeak, Chris just shook his head and tossed in a savage pinch on the thigh to make Joey back off. 

JC shot him a reproachful look, possibly for pinching Joey, but probably not. It didn’t much matter; Chris was used to ignoring those looks or deflecting them by doing something mean to JC instead. In this case, he just patted Lance on the head and said, “Yeah, well, whatever. JC’ll fuck anything, doesn’t even have to be animate, so we’re all cool.” The conversation degenerated into a nice safe round of name-calling and roughhousing, and that was that. 

A few nights later, Chris and Justin and JC were hanging out in Joey and JC’s room, enjoying a rare night off. Joey and Justin were on Joey’s bed, playing cards and eating chocolate, and Chris was lying on his stomach on JC’s bed, trying not to listen to JC who sat cross legged on the floor engaged in a long, meandering, pretty much incomprehensible monologue loosely inspired by a TV show he’d seen a year or so ago on quantum mechanics, a subject about which Chris knew almost nothing and JC, if the substance of his monologue was any indication, even less. 

The bedspread was rough and scratchy, and Chris was toying with the idea of hauling it off the bed to wrap around JC’shead when Lance knocked on the door before coming in. He was odd that way, such nice manners, never forgot to say please or thank you, always excused himself when he left the table or burped, but he’d drop a hot baked potato down the back of your pants without even blinking, and then call you a silly fucker while you screamed.

“Dude, where’ve you been?” Justin said. “I bought all this chocolate when I went out with my mom, and there was some for you but it was really good, so we kinda ate it all. Sorry. But where were you?”

“Homework,” Lance explained, rolling his eyes. “My mom thinks I’m falling behind.”

“Bummer. Wanna play cards? Joey’s teaching me how to cheat.”

“Like you needed any lessons, you little bastard,” Joey muttered, glaring at the cards in his hand.

“No, thanks,” said Lance. “I’m just going to rest for a bit.”

The next thing Chris knew, Lance was sliding down beside him on the bed, snuggling in close enough that they were actually touching, and suddenly Chris’ entire awareness had narrowed to those points of contact, to the heat of Lance’s body against his left arm, against his hip and along the length of his leg. He took a deep breath to steady himself, but that was even worse, because now Lance was in his nose, too, and in his lungs, and he could even hear Lance’s heartbeat thumping away like distant drums. Or maybe that was his own heart, he wasn’t really sure. He just knew that he needed some air between them fast or he was going to faint for the first time in his life. 

Except now Lance was staring at him, those weird green eyes so close he could lick them if he wanted to, which he didn’t, even if he did wonder a bit what they’d taste like. There were other bits he’d like to taste more, though, lots of them, and they were all right here next to him. Now he knew the heartbeat was his because he could feel it thundering in his brain like an incipient embolism.

He blinked, and when he opened his eyes, Lance was smiling at him. That was nothing new, Lance smiled at him all the time, or whenever Chris wasn’t being a complete dickhead anyway, so at least several times a day. This smile was different, though, sweet and amused and secretive, and Chris couldn’t place it at all in his lengthy mental catalogue of Lance smiles. An anomalous smile, he thought, and then stopped thinking at all as Lance tilted in towards him, closer still, his mouth against Chris’ ear, his breath even hotter than his skin, sending frantic chills all down Chris’ spine. 

A tiny little corner of Chris’ brain was distantly aware of the snapping of card against card as someone on the other bed shuffled the deck, and of JC’s voice getting progressively more excited as he rattled on about collapsing waves and indeterminate cats, but those things seemed very far away and unimportant. The only thing in the universe of any significance at all at this precise moment in time was the warm, damp huff of breath into his ear as Lance whispered, “You can sleep with me if you want.”

The words were whispered, but Lance might as well have bellowed them through a megaphone. They slammed into Chris like cluster bombs, each syllable setting off its own chain reaction of shock and heat and blinding panic. He opened his mouth to speak, but the only vocalization he seemed to be capable of was a high pitched whooshing that sounded, at least to his ears, closer to air escaping from a balloon than to any recognizable unit of language. 

Apparently it wasn’t any more comprehensible to Lance than it was to him, because those freakish green eyes just kept staring at him, and after a moment or two of silence, Lance’s elbow started nudging him encouragingly in the ribs.Whatever. They could lie here from now until doomsday, and Chris still wouldn’t have recovered from the shock. 

This was stupid, just fucking stupid, but he couldn’t think of a thing to say, and even if he could, it wouldn’t matter because his mouth had stopped working, and the only thought his brain was able to muster was Escape! Escape! whichwould have been fine if his limbs weren’t in the throes of hysterical paralysis. He blinked twice at Lance and did the only thing he could think of. He snapped his eyes shut, went very still and pretended to be asleep.

After poking him, tickling him and giggling in his ear for about twenty minutes, Lance finally gave up and slid down to the floor to set JC straight. When he was sure they were deeply absorbed in their argument, Chris managed to slip out of the room.

There was a lot Chris would have given to be able to just pretend the whole thing had never happened, but apart from the complete asininity of thinking he’d ever be able to erase the memory of those words on Lance’s lips and tongue, he very much doubted Lance would be charitable enough to let him. The only way to deal with this was going to have to be quick, dirty and direct, and involve a complete absence of physical contact of any kind. Even if Lance cried. Especially if Lance cried. Fuck. He really hoped Lance wouldn’t cry. 

When he bumped into Lance in the hotel corridor on his way down to breakfast the next morning, it took all the restraint in his admittedly limited store to make eye contact instead of ducking his head and racing for the stairs. For a moment Chris thought perhaps the whole thing had been a joke, because Lance was grinning rudely at him, very much not at all like a boy with a broken heart. Okay, so this was good, if somewhat offensive, but Chris wasn’t about to take offence. There was stupid, and then there was stupid.

He nodded at Lance in a don’t-you-dare-laugh-at-me-you-stupid-shit-but-on-the-other-hand-don’t-breathe-in-my-ear-again-either sort of way, which apparently Lance completely misinterpreted because the next second he was right there in Chris’ space, close enough to be a second shirt, and bouncing his low, sexy laugh off the side of Chris’ head. Dumb as a post, obviously, and how fucking annoying was that, because now Chris had to deal with it. If Lance were any sort of a gentleman (which he fucking well should be, being from the south; what the hell good did it do anyone to know southerners if they couldn’t even live up to their damned stereotypes, after all), he’d stop laughing into Chris’ hair and pretend he was attracted to women, or cattle, or JC. Shit.

He backed away, inserting a bit of distance between them, and put a hand up to stop Lance from moving closer. 

“Look. Lance. We need to talk. About last night.”

Lance smiled at him expectantly. “Uh huh? Now that you’re awake, you mean?”

“Whatever. I don’t know whether you were just fucking around or what, but I need you to know that nothing’s going to happen. Between us. You and me. Nothing. Got it?”

“Why not?” Lance didn’t look crushed or like he was about to burst into tears, which was a relief. On the other hand, he didn’t look particularly deterred, either. “You like me. I can tell.”

“Because I’m not a fucking child molester, that’s why not.”

“Well, I’m not a fucking child.”

“You’re sixteen!”

“Seventeen. Birthday last month, remember?”

“So the fuck what? You’re still jailbait, and I’m still not interested. That’s it. That’s all I have to say. Now, I’m going down to eat and I don’t ever want to talk about this again.” There. Done. Quick and dirty, always the rejection technique of choice. He started for the staircase, but Lance slid in front of him and stopped him with a hand on his chest.

“Wait. Can I just ask you a question, though?”

“I guess.”

“How old were you?”

“Huh?”

“When you first did it? How old were you? How old was the other guy?”

“That’s none of your god damned business. And, whatever, that was totally different, anyway. Shut up,” he said as Lance snickered. “It was different. My first guy wasn’t, like, in a position of authority.”

When Lance stopped laughing, he shook his head and said, “I’m here with my mom, Chris. I’m pretty sure she can take care of the authority angle without any help from you.”

“Yeah, and I’m pretty sure she’d just be so impressed with me if I started diddling her little boy. Christ. Whatever. It’s irrelevant. I don’t sleep with kids and I don’t sleep with virgins. Ever.”

Lance tilted his head to one side and looked thoughtful. “Well, then. I guess if I want a shot with you, I’d better get busy.”

“What? What? No! Wait! Come back here!”

But Lance was already halfway down the stairs, laughing loudly and waving goodbye over his shoulder.

Well, crap. Maybe Lance was serious and maybe he wasn’t, but Chris wasn’t taking any chances. He had to find Diane right away and tell her to start exerting her authority by keeping a closer eye on her son.

Later, as he glared at Lance across the breakfast table, he borrowed a pen from the waitress and wrote at the top of his napkin, 

Why I still don’t want to sleep with Lance:

1.       He’s an annoying fuck.  
2.       He’s just a kid. Still.  
3.       He’s got weird eyes, I’d probably have nightmares.  
4.       His mother scares me.  
5.       It would be bad for the group.  
6.       Bev would hate visiting me in a German prison.  
7.       He’s not even hot. Not really.  
8.       Joey and JC would kill me.  
9.       It would set a bad example for Justin.  
10.     I really don’t sleep with virgins. Or kids.

When he looked up, he saw Lance squinting at the napkin, trying to make sense of Chris’ upside down scrawl. 

“Piss off,” Chris muttered, balling the napkin up and shoving it into his mouth. It tasted awful, but he chewed it down to a thick paste and spat it onto the remains of his eggs. He was probably going to die from lead poisoning. Mercury poisoning? Poisoning whatever noxious substance they filled their ballpoint pens with in Germany, anyway. And it would all be Lance’s fault. 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Lance was a merciless flirt. He was also stubborn as shit, which Chris already knew and was mostly impressed by, but this was a whole different story. Any other person with a shred of self-respect would have just let it go and moved on, but Lance seemed to interpret rejection as a declaration of war. Or love. Whatever. The battle lines were drawn, and however fucked up things had been before, they now became infinitely more complicated.

Chris never knew what to expect or when to expect it. Days, weeks would pass and Lance wouldn’t do so much as wink at him over his shoulder, or pinch his ass, or ask him if he’d changed his mind yet. Figuring the whole crush thing had run its course, Chris would start to let his guard down, and things would gradually ease back to normal, where at least eighty percent of the time Lance was just one of the guys. 

And then, one day they’d be wrestling, and he’d have Lance pinned to the floor with a knee in his back and a handful of hair in his fist, and instead of bucking him off or rolling to one side, Lance would just go still and boneless beneath him, and make a soft moaning sound that could maybe, possibly be taken for pain if it wasn’t so clearly pleasure. Chris would be off him in a flash and across the room, leaving Lance giggling to himself on the floor.

It was a sneaky, underhanded stealth-bomber-y approach to flirting, rarely overt enough that Chris could retaliate with an explicit smack down.

For the first few months, the guys didn’t notice anything amiss because Lance tended to pull his stunts when he and Chris were alone. As the weeks passed, though, and Chris finally clued in to the safety in numbers strategy, Lance grew bolder. He’d wait until the others were distracted, attack, and then look all bewildered and innocent when Chris started sputtering in shock or yelling at him. They’d all be gathered in Joey’s room to watch porn while the moms were out shopping, for example, and when the on-screen action started heating up, Lance would snuggle up close and whisper in Chris’ ear, “I’d totally do that to you, if you wanted me to.”

Or Chris and Lance would be sitting next to one another on the bus, on the way to yet one more town they’d never see more of than a stage, a dressing room and a cheap hotel room. They’d be talking to the other guys, yelling bad jokes up and down the bus, laughing, and suddenly out of the blue Lance would lean over and lick Chris on the neck, a quick, electric flick of a tongue that might just as well have been applied directly to his dick, its effect was so immediate. The next second, Lance would be tugging at Joey’s hair and teasing him about the girl he’d dated the night before.

Eventually, of course, it had to come out. There was just no way to keep that kind of secret for any length of time, not living in one another’s pockets as they did. 

It happened one rainy afternoon when they were hanging out in a hotel lobby, waiting for a reporter to show up, even though she wasn’t due for another hour. None of them could face the prospect of waiting in the tiny, bleak, airless rooms Lou had booked, and the rain was so grey and heavy, they didn’t feel like braving the street, either. Joey was writing postcards, Lance was absorbed in a chemistry textbook and Chris had been trying unsuccessfully for the last half hour to interest Justin and a snoozing JC in heading upstairs for a quick game of basketball in the hallway.

“Come on, you guys! I’m bored. I’m bored! I’m so fucking bored I’m gonna start chewing the carpets. .” A pen struck him in the side of the head. “Hey, cut that out!”

He turned to glare at Lance, who had abandoned his textbook and was now sprawled back in his armchair, one leg draped elegantly over the side, his hand resting suggestively over his crotch. Lance smiled at him. “You can play withme, Chris,” he said sweetly.

“Go to hell, Bass,” Chris snapped. “I don’t fucking want to play with you. How many god damned times do you need to be told.”

“Hey, whoa!” Joey looked up from his postcard. “Why are you being such a shit to Lance?”

Chris gaped at him in outrage. “Me? Me? I’m not the shit in this equation. Lance is the shit And not just any random shit. He’s the most irritating, devious, cheating, cock teasing-ish Mata Hari-wannabe shit in western Europe, so I’d take it as a personal kindness if you’d just fuck the hell off and leave me alone, Fatone..”

“What are you talking about?”

“He means,” Lance said, coming over to sit on the arm of Chris’ chair, “that I’m trying to seduce him. And you,” he poked Chris in the stomach. “For your information, it’s only called cock teasing if the cock teaser isn’t willing to put out.Which, also for your information, just in case I haven’t made myself clear, I am.”

There was a collective gasp from Joey, JC and Justin, and followed by an extended silence as they all stared, first at Lance, then at Chris, then back at Lance and then back to Chris. It was like they’d morphed into a three-headed idiot, Chris thought irritably.

“Are you?” asked JC. “Trying to seduce him, I mean?” And all three heads spun back to Lance.

“Yup.”

“But, like a joke, right?” Justin said, nodding his head in an encouraging, very funny but joke’s over now kind of way.

“No.”

JC broke rank with the three headed beast and turned to glare in Chris’ direction. “Chris, god, if you’ve touched him--“

“What the fuck? Of course I haven’t touched him, assbrain! What kind of pervert do you think I am? Jesus H.Hamheaded Christ!”

Lance draped an arm around Chris’s shoulder and nuzzled his neck. “Oh, hush. Chris just has old fashioned courtship notions, JC. He wants to wait until we’re married.” 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Knock it off!” Chris wrenched himself away and out of the chair, deciding that a stroll in the rainstorm was looking more attractive by the second. Unfortunately there was a foot in his way, which there wouldn’t have been if Lance could just keep his freaking distance for once in his life, and instead of ending up on the safety of the sidewalk, Chris found himself in a petulant heap on the floor, swearing vigorously to the accompaniment of Lance and Justin’s guffaws. When JC offered him a hand up, he slapped it away and growled at him. 

Joey was looking down at him, as serious as Chris had ever seen him. It made him feel guilty, and that made him feel almost cranky enough to take a bite out of Joey’s ankle. Which he totally would have if Joey’d been like a foot and a half closer. 

“What’s going on, Lance?” Joey asked.

“Nothing. Nothing’s going on. He says I’m too young.”

“He’s right.”

Lance opened his mouth, then shut it again abruptly. In those few seconds, Chris could see him clearly, the uncertain kid lurking underneath the layers of bravado and self-assurance. He could see him in the sudden droop of Lance’s shoulder’s as he digested Joey’s words, in the sharp look of hurt that flashed across his face and was as quickly smothered. Squeezing his eyes shut, Chris sent up a silent prayer of thanks to whatever power in the universe had given him the good sense not to let things get any farther this. Lance might think he knew what he wanted, but Lance was a kid. He didn’t know shit. 

“No, he’s not.” Justin’s voice cut through his relief.

“What?”

“He’s not too young. That’s just whack, man.”

“Keep out of this, Justin.”

“Why should 1? Joey isn’t keeping out of it. JC isn’t keeping out of it. I’m entitled to my opinion. And I think it’s cool that Lance wants to, you know--“

“Suck my dick? You think that’s cool, you little freak?”

“Shhhh!” hissed JC frantically. “People are going to hear.”

“Um. Not the specifics, maybe. But it’s cool that he likes you. It is. His age shouldn’t matter. It wouldn’t matter to me, not if I really liked someone. And you know what? You guys are just being sexist, yo. If I wanted to go out with an older woman, you wouldn’t think that was so awful.”

“If she was as old as I am, I’d have her arrested.”

“Oh, bullshit. You would not. Would you? You wouldn’t really, right?”

“If he didn’t, I would,” JC said. “Or Joey would. Or your mom, Justin. What? Don’t give me that face, man. It’s what we do. We look out for you guys, try to keep you away from all that skanky shit.”

“And we’re just so grateful,” Lance said, standing up and smoothing his pants. “But, you know, in this particular case, it isn’t necessary. I mean, in the first place, Chris might be an ass ninety-eight percent of the time, but he hardly falls into the category of “skanky shit,” and in the second place, I’m sorry, guys, but this just isn’t a group thing. This is a me and Chris thing. Y’all can have your opinions till the cows come home, but it’s Chris’ decision and my decision, and you can tell me anything you like about how to dance, and what to say to reporters, and how to handle Lou, and what to wear and how to fake a convincing smile, and how to stay awake at those god awful sponsor dinners, but not this. This is where you back up and back off.”

He stood there for a few minutes, glaring at Joey and JC, hands fisted at his sides as though he barely hold himself back from challenging them to put up their dukes. When neither of them responded, he relaxed slightly, and walked over to squat by Joey’s chair. “We’re okay, right, Joe? You’re not mad?”

“No, doofus. I’m not mad. But I think--“

“So, you’re not going to interfere?” 

Joey shrugged, and Chris could see him giving up, which was just typical. The stupid fucktard couldn’t say no to Lance to save his life. “Whatever. Do what you want. You will anyway.” 

“Oh, fucking terrific, Fatone. I don’t get a say in this?”

Lance grinned at him. “Of course you get a say, Chris. Whenever you’re ready to say yes, just let me know.” With that, he rose and headed for the elevator. Chris tried to follow him, but only made it halfway across the lobby before Joey grabbed his arm and swung him back onto the couch.

“You know you can’t sleep with him, don’t you?”

“I know that if you ask me that question one more fucking time, Justin and I are going to leave the band and go on the road as the new Sonny and Cher. Shit. You know me better than that, Fatone, what the hell is wrong with you?”

“I’d be Cher, right?” asked Justin. “Sonny was that short little ugly dude, wasn’t he? I’m not sayin’ you’re ugly, man, but if you were any shorter we could use you as a doorstop. Hey, don’t hit me, I’m a valuable commodity.”

And that was that. From that afternoon on, Chris was on his own. Now that everything was out in the open, Lance dispensed with subtlety and subterfuge altogether, flirting blatantly with Chris whenever the five of them were alone -- and sometimes when they weren’t. At first the other guys ignored it or pretended not to notice, but gradually they came to treat the whole thing as a big joke. When Lance goosed Chris during rehearsals or dropped his towel repeatedly so he could bend down and wave his ass in Chris’ direction, they found it hilarious. They’d egg him on, and Chris was pretty sure they fed him ideas on the sly. 

The strange thing was, after a few weeks, it started to feel normal. Lance flirting with Chris became as a much a part of the group’s internal identity as Joey’s obsession with Superman, or Justin’s paranoia about germs. It was something they could count on, like JC falling asleep the moment he hit a flat surface, and if a few days went by without Lance putting the moves on Chris, they’d all start getting little twitchy, like they did when Chris was calm for any length of time.  

Lance never got upset or angry when Chris turned him down. It didn’t seem to bother him a bit. Eventually, Chris decided maybe that was the point, maybe this wasn’t just a game to the guys, maybe it was a game to Lance, too -- one he had no real intention of winning. That was just fine with Chris. He had no problem with games. He liked playing games. And this game was actually kind of fun. 

A few nights after Lance’s eighteenth birthday, Joey, Lance and Chris were downing schnapps shooters at a little bar around the corner from their current hotel. It was a dimly lit, grubby grey hole of a place, frequented by grubby grey men of indeterminate age who slouched alone or in silent groups, gazing into their drinks and nodding solemnly to the Doris Day tunes that blared from the speakers in an endless loop. They’d been there for a couple of hours (through at least four re-plays of Que Sera Sera, the last three of which they’d sung along to, much to the distress of the grubby grey bartender), talking about synthetic breasts, the relative merits of bratwurst versus burgers, who’d written “The Charge of the Light Brigade” and whether Lou always stuck them in rat bag hotels with no cable and even less hot water because he was cheap or because he was sadistic. The conversation had somehow segued into an argument about which of them had eaten the grossest thing. Joey having just topped Chris’s admission to tasting cat puke with a long, convoluted story involving a hamburger left on a windowsill, a hot summer weekend and maggots.

“Okay, Bass,” Chris said. “Don’t be shy. We know you southern boys are all about the inbreeding and the sheep fucking, so I’m guessing you’ve put some pretty revolting things in that mouth of yours from time to time. Do tell.”

Lance downed his schnapps in one swallow and smiled a little blurrily. “Mm. Um, let me think.” He rested his chin in palm and gazed at Chris for a few seconds. “First, though, you should probably know. I’m not gonna wait forever.”

“Huh?” 

“I said, I’m not going to wait forever. For you. I thought you should know.”

Chris eyed him cautiously, wondering if this was another set up, but Lance looked serious, even a little sad. Joey was looking a little sad too, and Chris wondered if they’d discussed this earlier. When he was in the washroom, maybe.

“Yeah. No, you shouldn’t. You shouldn’t wait.” He nudged Lance with his knee under the table, and then ruffled his hair. “I wouldn’t want you to.” 

Lance sighed and nudged him back. “Your loss, man.  Okay. Where were we? Oh, right. So, yeah, the grossest thing I ever ate was a rat tail sandwich. With candy sprinkles and hot sauce.”

Later, when Chris and Joey were getting ready for bed back in the hotel room they were sharing, Joey poked his head out of the bathroom, waved his toothbrush in the air and mumbled through a mouthful of foam, “You know. About Lance.”

“You know. About that disgusting habit you have of spitting toothpaste all over my bed.”

“Fuck off. You love it. I’m just saying. Well. He’s older now.”

“Uh huh. By, what, a whole six months?”

“No, but, really. He’s not a kid anymore, Chris. He’s eighteen. And anyway, he knows what he wants. He always knows what he wants. I just. Well, I just want you to know that we -- me and JC -- we kind of overreacted back then. And II guess, if you wanted to take things further, we wouldn’t mind. We wouldn’t think any less of you. It’s gonna be someone, might as well be you.”

“Oh, yeah. There’s a reason for getting in his pants. Look, man, I appreciate the blessing, but you’re talking out of your ass. He might be eighteen, but he’s still a kid, and frankly? I don’t need that kind of shit. I dated kids when I was a kid and as I recall, it pretty much sucked. There are just too many ways this could get fucked up. So, no. No.”

“Fucked up how?”

“You want a list?”

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Lance didn’t waste any time, Chris had to give him that. He started dating guys -- or a guy -- the next week, which seemed indecently soon, but whatever. His opportunities were somewhat limited as, quite apart from the professional need to be circumspect, Lance hadn’t come out to his mom yet and Diane still monitored his activities pretty closely, even if he was eighteen. Chris thought he would have moved to a different continent if Bev had poked her nose in his business as much as Diane did, but then he remembered that, actually, she had poked her nose in every bit as much whenever she’d had the opportunity. So maybe it was just a mom thing. Or a son thing. A mother and son thing. 

Whatever. Diane’s nosiness and the group’s schedule were a definite obstacle, but Lance managed to have at least two romances in Germany that Chris was aware of -- and he was pretty sure that was it, because between Joey, who dealt with secrets in much the same way as a philanthropist deals with a pocketful of cash, and Justin, who had developed an almost religious obsession with Lance’s sex life, there wasn’t much Chris didn’t know about Lance’s struggle to lose his virginity. More than his mother, anyway.

The first boyfriend, if he could actually be called that, was some graduate student from Australia who had taken a year off school (or “uni” as he called it) and surfing to bum around Europe and drink copious amounts of German beer. He was tall and tan, and had hair down to his waist, which would have been just fine, except that he kept it tied back with a blue velvet ribbon which no amount of taunting could convince him to lose.

It was hardly the big romance of the century. He and Lance had lunch twice, went to a show one night when the group wasn’t performing and, according to Justin, kissed exactly twice -- once in the elevator, and once outside the door to Lance’s room. Lance thought, Joey said, that the guy was probably a pretty good kisser, but was reserving judgement because he didn’t have much of a frame of reference to measure it against. Which meant, Chris figured, that the guy probably kissed like a trout. 

The whole thing lasted about ten days, and then surfer boy headed off to Lichtenstein to hook up with a bevy of relatives for some kind of family reunion, or his great uncle’s birthday, or maybe it was for the christening of his illegitimate cousin’s pet gerbil, because who really paid any attention to the social calendars of guys who festooned their heads with ribbons. Lance didn’t seem too bothered by his departure, so apparently Chris’ assessment of his kissing abilities hadn’t been too far off the mark.

The next guy was the son of a Saudi Arabian diplomat who spotted Lance at a party held by one of their European promoters and homed in on him like an ant to a picnic. Or, as Chris put it the next morning at breakfast, like a blowfly to a two-week old corpse. Hassan had studied at Harvard and the Sorbonne, and was an arrogant fuckhead, but he didn’t have any ribbons in his hair, so there was that. For three weeks, he came to their shows, hung out with them before and after, mooned around in the background during their interviews, and generally immersed himself in theboyband experience. It wasn’t as if he enjoyed their music, because he quite obviously didn’t, although he was smart enough not to say so. He did, though, have a definite appreciation for Lance’s ass and appeared willing to put up with a lot to further its acquaintance.

As Justin reported to Chris and JC, things hadn’t progressed much farther than some heavy duty necking and a couple of frantic groping sessions, when Hassan stormed off one night just before show time after a furious whispered argument with Lance.

“So, he dump you or what?” Chris asked later. They were unwinding in Joey and JC’s room, all of them sprawled on the floor drinking beer and eating stale almond pastries. “What’d you do? Fuck up on the pronunciation of baise mon cul? Accidentally use your fish knife to butter your roll? Tell him that Harvard boys are renowned for being lousy in the sack? Which, as a point of interest, has actually been totally true of every Harvard guy I’ve ever gotten naked with.”

“As a point of interest, that’s not even remotely interesting. And he didn’t dump me. I dumped him.” Lance pushed another chunk of pastry into his mouth and looked pleased with himself.

“Good,” said Joey. “He was an ass. Sorry, dude, but really. You can do better than that.”

“Of course he can do better. My grandma could do better.” Justin burped and nudged Lance with his toe. “So what happened, dude? Why’d you dump him?”  

“It doesn’t matter. Pass me another beer, ‘kay, C?”

Chris peered sideways at JC who was slumped next to him, head resting on Chris’ shoulder. “I think he’s asleep. He’d better be asleep, he’s fucking drooling all over my shirt. You want a beer, you’re gonna have to tell us why you gave pecker snot the boot.”

“Bite me.”

“Oh, come on, Lance. It can’t be that bad. Did he have bad breath? Did he pick his nose at the movies? Did he keep beating you at Scrabble? Did he want to spank you? Did he want to spank Joey? Did he find out you were an alien? Did he find out you wanted to use him as an incubator for alien babies who would suck the life force out of humankind and repopulate the world with freakish banana shaped life forms that have sex with lamp posts and only listen to the Captain and Tenille? Did--“

“Fuck! Would you shut up! He said your hair was stupid! There, are you happy now?”

“Um. Okay. You,” Chris said, throwing a bottle cap at Justin. “Stop giggling. It’s very unmanly. But, you know, my hair iskind of stupid, Lance.”

“Of course your hair is stupid. That’s hardly the point.”

“Right. Of course. So that’s good then. We all agree my hair’s stupid which makes me feel so much better about being me, but my stupid hair isn’t the point. So, what is the point?”

“The point is, your stupid hair is none of his fucking business. Which he just didn’t seem to get. And since it didn’t seem likely that he was going to be getting it any time soon, I told him to bug off. End of story.”

“Kind of a dumb reason to break up,” Joey said. “Just, you know. If all your boyfriends are going to have to like Chris’ hair, you’re probably going to find the pickings pretty slim.”

Chris nodded and shook his dreds at Lance. “Man’s got a point.”

“Yeah, well, you guys are as dense as he was, so you’re in no position to be offering advice. Now, is someone going to pass me a beer, or do I have to tell Lynn y’all are feeding Justin alcohol again?”

Within a month, they were back in the States, and Lance started dating in earnest. There were more opportunities, for one thing. He’d finally come out to his mom, and to help him celebrate, Chris bought him a copy of Fodor’s Gay Guide to the USA. Joey, Chris and JC took turns hauling him off to gay bars in whatever city they happened to be touring, and that turned out to be just the kick start Lance needed. For the next few weeks, before their faces were so well known they couldn’t buy a pop in corner store without being asked for an autograph, he was out with a different guy almost every night. 

Prodded for details one night when Lance was hitting the clubs and the rest of them were kicking back and getting stoned at the hotel, Joey told Chris that Lance wasn’t actually “um, doing it” with any of the guys he dated. 

“Do you think maybe he’s not really gay?” Justin asked. “Because that’s pretty weird, isn’t it? For a gay guy?”

Chris decided not to smack him in the head, mostly because he was too stoned to want to move that quickly, but also because Joey beat him to it.

“That’s kind of an offensive stereotype, you know, Justin,” JC said. “I don’t know where on earth you got the idea that just because a person is gay he’ll jump into any old bed just because it’s there.”

“Yeah, you don’t wanna be basing your conceptions of the gay lifestyle on JC’s mating habits,” Chris told him. “Some gay folk actually prefer to be introduced before they start sucking a guy’s dick.”

JC just snickered happily and rolled another joint. “Whatever. Sometimes I just don’t have time for the social niceties. You know how busy we are.”

“Yeah, okay, blah blah blah. Enough about you. Why isn’t Lance getting laid, that’s what I want to know.”

“Maybe Justin’s right.” JC took a long hit and passed the joint to Joey. “Maybe he’s a closet heterosexual?”

“A closet girl, maybe,” Chris said. He pinched Joey’s thigh. “Tell him to stop being such a fucking miss priss wussie boy and start getting some action. He’s giving boybanders a bad name.”

“Shit! That hurt! Pinch me again and I’m gonna give you a swirlie you won’t forget in a hurry. And Lance isn’t a wuss.”

“No, he’s not,” Justin agreed. “Maybe he just wants the first time to be--“

“What? Special? You think maybe he wants his first time to be magical? Perf--“

“His own business, perhaps?”

At the sound of the deep voice, they all swivelled around to see Lance in the doorway, glaring at them.

“This is pathetic. I can’t believe you guys are sitting around on a Saturday night discussing my sex life.”

“Or lack thereof,” Chris supplied helpfully. “Don’t get your panties in a twist, pretty boy. We’re only looking out for your best interests. Joe here was saying you’re not getting any, Justin thought maybe you had a couple of X chromosomes you’d forgotten to mention, and JC was offering to learn you all about being a big ole gay slut. I said we should just leave to you to get your cherry busted in your own good time. Because, come on, guys. This prying into Lance’s personal business has just got to stop. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go pick up a hooker or start a bar fight or something.”

They were halfway through their U.S. promo tour when Lance finally got laid for the first time. It was one of the sound technicians, an intense, nerdy sort of guy with Elvis Costello glasses and a tattoo of Mighty Mouse on his left bicep. Lance had started eyeing him in Minneapolis, had a developed a strong interest in sound technology in Lake Buena Vista, and by the time the bus pulled in to Providence, the two of them had been disappearing at regular intervals during set up. 

Three days later in New York City, when they guys all met for breakfast to celebrate the fact that they had the next few days off,  Chris didn’t need to ask Joey what Lance had been doing the night before. He arrived at the restaurant rumpled and happy, his lips all red and smooshed looking and his hair sticking out every which way.

“Sorry I’m late,” he mumbled breathlessly, sitting down beside Joey. “What?” he asked, looking around the table at their curious faces.

“Finally put out last night, Bass?” asked Chris, passing him a menu.

Lance didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to. The blush that crept from under his collar, up his neck and over his cheeks said it all. 

JC smiled and gave him the thumbs up. Joey wrapped an arm around his shoulder in a proud squeeze. Justin, never too swift in the morning, peered from Lance to JC to Joey to Chris and back to Lance, then yelled, “Dude! You slept with him? That’s fucking awesome!”

“Oh my god,” Lance groaned, hunching over and looking like he was going to try and slide under the table. 

“No, but, wow. That’s so cool, Lance. Was it--? What did-? I mean, did you--?”

“You have to shut up right now. Chris, make him shut up before I die of embarrassment.”

Mighty Mouse nerd boy lasted a couple of weeks, until Lance found him in the back of the wardrobe truck with one of the electricians. After that, there was a succession of guys remarkable only for their total lack of suitability. Lance had the most appalling taste in men imaginable. It was like he chose his dates with a bag over his head and mashed potatoes stuffed in his ears. Chris studied each new guy for redeeming qualities, but it was hopeless. To a man, they were too stupid, too arrogant, too intellectual, too plastic, too political, too apolitical, too dirty, too boring, too hairy, too good looking or too hideous to really be allowed out on the street.

It was a struggle to be civil to most of them, but he found that if was rude or mean, Lance tended to date them for longer, so he tried to control himself. Sustained restraint really wasn’t in his repertoire, though. If he kept suppressing all his well-intentioned criticism, he’d do himself a serious damage, maybe even develop an ulcer. And Lance might end up in a terrible relationship with a terrible boyfriend and it would all be Chris’ fault. This just wasn’t healthy, for either of them. 

Finally, after another morning spent trying to make stultifyingly boring small talk with the latest conquest, Chris hit on his brilliant idea. Letters. Anonymous letters. The tried and true method of mentoring from the sidelines. Why hadn’t he thought of it before?

 _Dear Lance,_

 _It pains me to do this, but, dude, somebody’s got to. I’d say this to your face, but you’re a prickly little snot and I’d just as soon keep my teeth._

  

  1. _It’s about this new boyfriend. Darren, was it? He’s about as charismatic as a tick on a dog’s ass, and almost as pretty. I’m sure you’re thinking that neither of those is necessarily reason enough to kick him to the curb, although some might say they’re a pretty good start. I’d be the first to tell you to grapple him to your soul with hooks of steel (or is that ‘hoops’ of steel? I’m a bit rusty on Willie the Shake these days) if those were his only faults. Which they fricking well aren’t, which brings me to the point of this letter, which is that your boyfriend sucks and this is why:_
  

  2. _He has no sense of humour. And I’m not just talking about how much he whined when that wastebasket got stuck on his head._
  

  3. _His taste in clothes is even worse than yours used to be. Not to mention, he doesn’t have the ass to carry off skin tight pants. Not to mention he’s crushing his nuts in those things and he probably won’t even be able to get it up by Christmas._
  

  4. _He gave Justin a dirty look when your back was turned. For no reason. Justin was totally not in on the wastebasket incident..I think he was coming on to your mom in the bar last night._
  

  5. _5.Or maybe he was coming on to your dad. I couldn’t be sure. (When they’re visiting, you should probably just stop dating. Less embarrassing for everyone.)_
  

  6. _You might be allergic to him. I’ve noticed you seem to break out more when he’s around._
  

  7. _He doesn’t wash his hands after he goes to the bathroom. That’s just wrong._
  

  8. _He likes country music and you really don’t need any encouragement in that area._
  

  9. _I don’t want to alarm you, but he looks an awful lot like the guy on last week’s episode of America’s MostWanted._
  

  10. _People with eyes that close together are usually bed wetters by the time they’re thirty. Really. It’s a proven fact._
  

_  
I’m only telling you this because I care._

 _Love,_

 _A Concerned Friend_

 __  
Lance opened the letter the next day on the bus while Chris pretended to be absorbed in ‘The Price is Right.’ He didn’t punch Darren’s number into his cell phone and tell him to peddle his tight pants elsewhere, which wasn’t entirely surprising, but he didn’t get all tight lipped and snooty, either,  like he usually did when someone got too far into his business. He read it, laughed, read it again, and then passed it to Joey, who read it out loud in a high pitched voice with an excess of hand waving and fist shaking while Lance laughed some more.

Darren didn’t last more than a couple of days after that, though, so all in all, Chris decided, the letter had to be deemed a success. Cool. Just like that he’d hit on the perfect weapon for disposing of Lance’s more gruesome boyfriends, which was to say ninety per cent of them

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Chris met Dani a few months later,  and suddenly Lance’s boyfriends slipped a notch or two on the priority scale. It wasn’t so much that Chris stopped paying attention, because he didn’t. That would have been wrong. Somebody had to keep an eye on Lance since Joey obviously sucked at it and Lance was so clearly clueless when it came to men, but Chris was insanely busy now. There just wasn’t time to monitor the comings and goings in Lance’s bed as closely as they needed to be monitored, and Chris found himself making mistakes. On one occasion, he accidentally sent Lance a critique of the guy JC was dating, and on another he sent a scathing report on a guy Lance had dumped two weeks previously. It was embarrassing. 

Eventually, he decided to compromise by restricting his reviews to the few who lasted more than a couple of weeks, and he found that much more manageable. In the two years he went out with Dani, only five guys had whatever it took to hold Lance’s interest for longer than five weeks; none of them made it past six, which was damned lucky because otherwise Chris would have had to stage an intervention. It was shocking what a poor judge of character Lance seemed to be when it came to men.   

Chris was having lunch with Lance a few months into his relationship with Dani, when he suddenly wondered if Lance was jealous. He didn’t know why it occurred to him at that moment. Lance wasn’t acting jealous, and he’d never seemed to be jealous of any of the people Chris had dated before, but there was something about the odd little smile on his face when Chris said that Dani might just be the one. 

He watched Lance shake salt onto his fries and then bury them under half a bottle of ketchup. 

“Does it bother you? Me and Dani, I mean? Are you. You know. Bothered?”

Lance didn’t pretend not to understand what he was talking about. “At first, yeah. A bit. But I like Dani. A lot. And you deserve someone who can make you happy like she does.” He smiled at Chris, his face as open as a summer sky, and Chris knew he was telling the truth.

Just one more reason to be glad he’d turned Lance down so many times in the past, if he was prepared to let go that easily. Not that Chris minded, of course, because he totally didn’t.

He leaned over and pinched Lance’s cheek. “You’ll find someone too, kid. You just need to stop looking in dumpsters or under rocks..”

A year later, when Chris and Dani broke up, Chris hated to admit it but he was secretly glad Lance hadn’t found his perfect man yet. Lance was the only person whose company Chris could stand for more than fifteen minutes at a stretch. 

Justin, his supposed best friend, kept foisting self-help books on him, and then insisted on quizzing him to see if he’d gained any insights into the reasons for the break up. The fucker even went so far as to sign Chris up for some kind of new age-y build-a-healing-relationship seminar where he was supposed to learn all about how to free his inner romantic and plan intimate encounters featuring body painting and chocolate fondue. 

JC was fine at first, but when Chris still hadn’t moved past the insult-everyone-who-tries-to-talk-to-you phase after three weeks, he started to get testy, and then started looking hurt, and well, really, who could stand to see that look on JC’s face.

Joey was useless because he just cried whenever Chris looked the least bit sad, or when he got nasty, or when he pretended everything was cool, which meant he was misty-eyed pretty much every second Chris spent in his company.  

Lance, on the other hand, knew exactly what to do. He took Chris out, got him liquored up, and told him to fuck off whenever he behaved like a shit. He didn’t take any crap and, even better, didn’t take anything personally. He also didn’t insist on talking the fucking thing into a second death. 

Best therapy ever, Chris thought to himself one night as Lance helped him stagger his way back to the hotel room.Couldn’t find better if you paid for it. Lance was a real friend. A real, true blue, super duper buddy friend, he thought as he swiped his key card somewhere in the vicinity of the ridiculously narrow slot that kept floating up and down the side of the door. 

Smart, too, he thought, as Lance yanked the card out of his hand, turned it around and ran it through the slot.

Not to mention strong, he thought, as Lance tightened his grip on Chris’ waist and half walked, half carried him across the room and sat him on the bed.

And pretty, he reminded himself as Lance knelt in front of him and started unlacing his shoes. Very pretty. As pretty asDani. As sexy as Dani, too. And. Fuck. Hot. Lance was hot. When the hell had that happened? How had he missed it? And why hadn’t anyone told him? JC must have noticed. Chris was going to kick his ass next time he saw him.

“I. Um. I changed my mind,” he said, reaching out and touching Lance’s cheek with his fingertips. The forward momentum almost toppled him right onto Lance’s head, but he managed to grab hold of the quilt and anchor himself just in time.

“You changed your mind? So. Jay Leno?”

“Mm, what?”

“You’d rather nude wrestle with Jay Leno?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“We’re not still talking about wrestling, are we? I thought we were still talking about wrestling. ‘Cause in the elevator, you said you’d rather nude-wrestle Phil Donahue than Jay Leno. So, you know. I thought you’d changed your mind.”

“I did not say that in the elevator. You’re full of shit, Bass. Donahue? Why would I say something like that?”

“I really can’t help you there, Chris. I don’t know. Not a clue. Nobody else in the elevator seemed to be able to figure it out either. Or maybe they were still confused because you kept yelling, ‘It’s a trap! It’s a death trap!’ and pounding on the doors.”

“I always do that in elevators.”

“Yes. I know. And it never wears thin. Really.”

“Bitch.” Chris gave Lance’s ear a sharp twist. “It doesn’t ever wear thin. Have you got my shoes off yet?”

“Uh huh. You want to get undressed or just crawl under the covers?” Lance nods towards the bed, and Chris notices the glint of light in his hair from the bedside lamp, the stretching of the tendon in his neck.

“Um.” Oh, wait a second. Right. Lance. Hot. “That reminds me. I was saying something.”

“Yeah. You changed your mind. Not about nude wrestling.”

“Shut up. Don’t distract me.” He wished Lance was a little uglier. These things were always easier if weren’t you constantly being sidetracked by your dick making its presence known. “I changed my mind. About, um. You. I changed my mind about you.”

“Uh huh.”

“Could you sound less excited?”

“Maybe. If I had any idea what you’re talking about.”

“Fuck, you’re obtuse tonight. I’ve changed my mind about wanting to. You know. Fuck around with you.”

“Oh!” Lance gave a little jump, his eyes going wide like Chris had just threatened to kneecap his sister. “Oh.”

 “Do you--“ 

Before Chris could finish the thought, Lance’s palms were on his knees, and then he was hauling himself to his feet.

“Chris,” he said. “I just.” He shrugged, and bent to touch his lips to Chris’ forehead, the briefest whisper of skin against skin. “You need to,” he pulled back, meeting Chris’ gaze. “I’m really sorry, Chris, but you need to go rebound somewhere else.”

Before Chris could argue, Lance had moved in again, his mouth against Chris’, his tongue against Chris’ lips, hot and insistent and tasting like whiskey and peanuts. Just as suddenly, it was gone, Lance was gone, across the room and through the door, and all Chris could do was sit and stare stupidly at the now empty patch of reddish brown carpet between his feet.

The memory of the kiss remained on Chris’ lips for the three minutes it took to crawl into bed and fall asleep, through several tequila inspired nightmares, two early morning trips to the bathroom, and still lingered there as he forced himself to choke down the plateful of bacon and eggs he ordered from room service the next morning.

Lance was a bastard, just no doubt whatsoever about that. Fucker. He’d probably just turned Chris down out of spite. What the hell was wrong with rebound sex, anyway? 

Whatever. If Lance wanted to be that way, fuck it. If he thought he was getting a second chance, he had another think coming. Chris rooted around in the desk drawers until he found a page of hotel stationery and a pen and started to write.

Dear Lance,

You may wonder why you can’t seem keep a boyfriend to save your life, so here. Let me help you figure it out.

Your boyfriends scatter like buckshot because:  


  

  1. You’re an ass
  

  2. You don’t know a good thing when one drops in your lap (or on the bed in front of you)
  

  3. You don’t know how to take someone’s shoes off without getting the laces tangled into the worst fucking knots I’ve ever seen. Hey! Did you do that on purpose?
  

  4. You’re nowhere near as hot as you think you are. Okay, you probably are, but whatever. Some people liked you before you were hot.
  



Rebound sex is fantastic but you’ll never know now because you’re a stupid snot. If you think you’re going to get a second chance, you’re just going to have to  ~~think again~~.  ~~wait and see.~~   ~~do a whole bunch of grovelling and maybe throw in a few sexual favours.~~  think again. 

Love,

A concerned friend

(Chris)

 

He was going to tear the letter up and throw it away, but when he opened the minibar in search of some orange juice, he accidentally downed one or three hair-of-the-dog mini gins as well, and after that, slipping the letter under Lance’s hotel room door seemed like a much better plan. 

Backstage before the show that night, Lance was deep in conversation with Joey when Chris arrived. He didn’t even deign to acknowledge Chris’ presence, so Chris guessed he was pissed off about the letter. Or about Chris coming on to him the night before. Or both. He was trying to figure out how to apologize without actually saying he was sorry when Lance glanced over at him and, instead of turning up his nose, tipped him an enigmatic wink and then smiled as though Chris had just given him the moon on toast.

The kid was weird. No doubt about it.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Several weeks later, Chris was able to think about Dani without having to anaesthetize himself first. Now when he told reporters they were still friends, it was actually the truth. He wasn’t sure when that had happened, or how, and he didn’t question it. It was enough that he didn’t wake up every morning trapped in the vast and ragged landscape of loss he’d been lost in for what felt like forever. 

He did know that as time had passed, the memory of that single kiss from Lance had inserted itself more and more frequently into his thoughts, smoothing over the rough edges, washing away the anger. Some mornings he woke up from dreaming about Lance’s lips against his skin, his whole body hungry and desperate. Some nights he fell asleep with the kiss replaying again and again, like sheep waiting to be counted. 

It was back again, this terrible crush that had caught him by surprise years ago. He’d thought he had it licked, but apparently it had just been lying dormant, a virus waiting until his immune system was weak before launching a second attack. It wasn’t just a crush now, though. His thing with Dani had at least taught him to recognize that basic difference. This was . . . well, it was more complicated than a simple crush. Stronger. Deeper. A fuck of a lot scarier.

He needed to figure out what to do. Or better still, have someone figure it out for him since he didn’t such a terrific track record with relationships. There was no point talking to Lance about it, not unless he wanted a re-hashing of the Perils of Rebound Sex lecture. Joey was out of the question, because if he told Joey, Lance would hear about it fifteen minutes later, and Chris would still have to endure the rebound sex sermon.

When he told Justin, Justin beamed at him, lifted him off his feet and swung him around in circles until he threatened to deposit his lunch down the back of Justin’s jacket.

“Dude! That’s. Wow. See, I told you he was right for you. Way back when, I told you. Remember? Awesome, Chris! That’s just awesome! So, have you told him?”

“I can’t tell him, J. There’s no point. He’ll just explain why it’s a bad idea. He’s got this fucked up phobia about rebound relationships.”

“Well. Okay. But you have to tell him. Otherwise, how will he know? Right?”

“I can’t tell him! I already told you. He wouldn’t listen, anyway.”

“Yeah. But you have to tell him, Chris.”

“Shut up! You’re stuck on stupid today, man. Maybe you should start eating more fish, or stop sticking your keys in electric sockets. I told you I’m not gonna tell him. Fuck off.”

“You fuck off. You’re the one who’s stuck on stupid. Didn’t you learn anything from those books?”

“Oh, fuck you and fuck your stupid fucking books.”

Chris slammed out of Justin’s room and down to the hotel bar. Maybe a few shots of tequila would clear his head.

The hotel switchboard woke him the next morning at some ungodly hour that wasn’t lunchtime, and then had the impertinence to lie and tell him he’d asked to woken. Assbrains. The world was populated assbrains.

After perusing the room service menu grumpily for a few minutes, he decided to go wake JC, because JC understood all about getting things you wanted without telling people that you wanted them. Karmic resonance or magnetic Buddhism or something such woofty thing. Something, at any rate, that translated roughly to mean that if JC really coveted a freakishly ugly fur hat with white and red piping on the sides, more often than not that hat would come to him without any more output from him than drooling over a magazine ad. Next morning, or maybe a week later, the hat would find its way to him, mysteriously appearing at the foot of his bed or underneath the coat he’d tossed down on the couch. Chris hadn’t been able, after all these years, to figure out how this happened or who was responsible. But happen it did, so if anyone could help him get Lance into his bed without having to invite him there, JC was the man to do it.

“Chris! I was just about to call. You’re late.” JC smiled at him and dragged him into the room. 

Unfortunately, the one variable he’d forgotten to factor into this equation was the fact that this was the morning they had all agreed to meet in JC’s room for breakfast and cartoons.  When JC let him in, Justin and Lance were already lounging on one of the beds with plates of bacon and eggs and pancakes, and Joey was pouring a glass of orange juice.

“Fuck. Why didn’t you guys remind me it was gonna be party central in here this morning?”

Justin threw a spoon at him, barely missing his left temple. “I just told you last night, dude. When was I supposed to remind you? When you went storming off in a huff?”

“Yes. Yes, that would have done nicely.”

“Chris stormed off in a huff?” Lance asked around a mouthful of pancake. “Why? Why was he in a huff?”

“Funny you should ask. Ow! Knock it off, Chris! That hurt!” Justin yelled as Chris threw the spoon back at him, connecting solidly with the centre of his forehead.

“Oh, don’t be such a baby. And shut your face, Timberlake, or that spoon’s goin’ somewhere nice people don’t mention unless they’re talking to their proctologist.”

JC hugged him from behind, rubbing his hands soothingly over Chris’ belly.

“Sounds like you got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Grab some food, that’ll make you feel better. Look, I even ordered some chocolate chip muffins and peanut butter, just for you.”

Chris allowed JC to coax him over to the food, watching Justin out of the corner of his eye to make sure the fucker kept his mouth shut. Which was fine, except what if he’d already said something to Lance before Chris had arrived? He peered surreptitiously at Lance, but all he could see was that Diane had failed miserably in the table manners department. Apart from the fact that Lance talked with his mouth full, he’d managed to get syrup on his chin, and maybe just a little on his cheek. Not only was there was no way of knowing what Justin had said, now he had to sit here and imagine licking food off Lance’s face. Crap. Life sucked. Justin sucked. Lance sucked hardest of all.

He took three chocolate chip muffins and four sausages and headed for the other bed. Fine, whatever. He’d just eat and wait for the others to leave, and then JC could tell him how to fix this. 

It was hard to pay attention to the cartoons because every time he looked over at Lance to see if there’d been any improvement in his eating habits, or if he’d maybe gotten a little homelier since the last time he checked, Lance would whip his head round and catch him looking. Nosy bastard. When Animaniacs came on, Chris managed to settle down a bit, and only looked at Lance twice, once during the first commercial break, and once, embarrassingly enough, when Dot was singing.

”I'm the one they adore,   
I'm sweet and I'm cuddly  
And small just like Dudley but more  
It's a chore  
To be constantly cute.”

Lance raised his eyebrows at him, grinned and looked back at the TV. A couple of minutes later, a slice of bacon landed by Chris’ knee. He ignored it. Next, a bit of pancake hit him on the cheek and stuck there. He pulled it off and ate it without removing his eyes from the TV. This was going to be a long, long morning. 

He was just thinking that a nap might be in order, when the bed dipped in that boat-ish way beds have of announcing a new boarding party. The slippy, sea-sick feeling in his stomach might have been caused by the sudden portside plunge, but the more likely reason was the physical fact of Lance, right there, kneeling beside him at first, and then, when Chris wouldn’t shift his eyes from the TV, directly in front of him, smiling his smiley smile a scant few inches from Chris’ face in what could only be considered an egregious invasion of personal space. Even worse, he wasn’t saying anything. Just sitting there and smiling like he had a secret Chris was too dumb to figure out.  

“Um,” Chris said, after rooting around unsuccessfully in his brain for a witty put down.

Lance smiled an even wider smile and edged closer, closer, closer until their faces were almost touching. He took Chris’ chin between his thumb and index finger and turned his head to the side like he was turning a page, and then his mouth was against Chris’ ear, warm and slightly sticky, whispering so softly Chris could barely make out the words.

“You can sleep with me if you want.”

Oh. Fuck. He wasn’t ready for this, he just wasn’t. Chris tried to scoot toward the other side of the bed, but he didn’t have time to extricate himself from his cross-legged position before Lance grabbed him by the knees and held him still. 

“Look. Lance. I don’t--“

“Yes. You do,” Lance whispered into his ear. “I know you do.” He rubbed his knuckles along the inside of Chris’ leg and bit his earlobe gently. “I’m not a kid any more.”

“Oh. Uh. I don’t. You can’t--“

“I’m not a virgin anymore.” Lance moved his hand up Chris’ thigh, further, further, until the tips of his fingers were pressing gently against the vee of Chris’ pants. 

“Stop it!” he whispered back. At least he hoped he’d whispered it. “Knock it off! You can’t do that here! There’s people here!”

Lance laughed, low and sexy, distracting Chris long enough to quickly unzip his fly and slide a hand into his pants. 

“Fuck! Oh, shit!” Chris yelled, and that was a ridiculously amateur move because now Justin, Joey and JC were all looking over to see what was going on. “They’re going to see!” he hissed at Lance, waving his arms around frantically so no one would notice what was going on inside his pants.

But Lance just laughed again and shrugged, like he was fiddling with the TV remote and not Chris’ dick. Stupid fuck. Chris was going to tie him down and die his eyebrows lime green when this was over, he was going to scribble all over his cheeks with indelible ink, and force him to eat sheep hearts and pig bowels. Most of all, he was going to stop thinking of Lance tied up, though, because that really wasn’t motivating him to get Lance’s hands off his body and back in the pancakes where they belonged.

He grabbed Lance’s wrist and tried to wrench his hand away, but Lance just tightened his grip, and holy hell, that felt fucking fantastic. “Nooo,” he whined, not even convincing himself. He cleared his throat squeezed Lance’s wrist. “I’m serious, Lance. They’re gonna see.”

“Yeah, okay, okay. Shut up. Hey, guys?” He looked over his shoulder at the others, who were still trying to peer past Lance’s back to see what was happening. “Fuck off for a while, okay?”

“Oh, God,” Chris groaned. “You bastard asshole, could you just let go?”

“Hey, it’s my room!” JC said. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m not even dressed yet.”

“Fine then. You want to watch, that’s up to you.” Lance shrugged, yanked his t-shirt over his head and started tugging on Chris’.”

“No, it isn’t!!” Chris yelped, dragging his shirt back down. “It totally isn’t, you freak!”

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Justin crawling across the other bed to get a better look. He reached back, scrabbling for a pillow to cover the evidence, but only came up with a handful of quilt and half a muffin.

“Oh, hey, shit!” Justin sounded shocked and delighted in equal measure. “Is his hand in your pants? His hand is in your pants! Dude, finally!” 

And then JC had his hand over Justin’s mouth, and Joey was tugging them both towards the door, the three of them giggling like ten year olds who’d just stepped in dog poo, and really, this had to be the most idiotic moment yet in a life already replete with far more than its share of idiotic moments.

He looked at Lance and Lance looked back in a way that suggested the idiocy of the moment had entirely escaped him. He looked, in fact, perfectly at ease, like he played with other guys’ dicks in rooms full of people six or seven times a week. Maybe he did, for all Chris knew. 

The door slammed shut, and Lance grinned suggestively, hands still knotted in Chris’ t-shirt. Stupid little shit. He obviously thought he could just whistle and Chris would roll over and drool. What the hell had happened to rebounding as the eighth deadly sin? Or had that just been payback for the seven thousand times Chris had said no to him? Well. Screw that. Two could play this game.

He tilted his head back and gazed down his nose coolly at Lance. 

Lance didn’t look impressed. He just tugged at Chris’ hem and asked, “You gonna chicken out on me again, Kirkpatrick?”

“It’s not chickening out if I don’t want to.”

Lance’s left eyebrow quirked upward. “You saying you don’t want to?” He let go of Chris’ shirt and slid his left hand underneath it, a slow, hot glide of calloused skin over Chris’ stomach, curving round his ribs and up his back. 

“Uh.” Chris struggled for something intelligent to say, but Lance seemed to have sucked all the oxygen out of the room. He felt all goosebumply and incoherent, maybe just the tiniest bit dizzy. If he ended up falling over backwards, he’d probably concuss himself on the headboard, so as a purely precautionary measure, he snaked both hands around to grab hold of Lance’s ass.

“You’re not interested, maybe?” Lance brought his other hand up to Chris’ face, palm toward Chris’ lips. “Lick.”

Chris licked. He had no choice, really. The hand was going back in his pants, that much was clear, and if he didn’t lick it and Lance didn’t lick it, well, it would probably chafe. He owed it to his cock. 

Lance’s palm tasted like butter and bacon, overlaid with another flavour that Chris recognized as the taste of his own dick. That thought made every nerve in his body spasm, so he closed his eyes and kept licking, wetting each of Lance’s fingers in turn, tonguing away the last traces of syrup. He felt the briefest twinge of disappointment when Lance took his hand away, but than it only lasted a second, because having it around his dick again was infinitely more entertaining. Even his tongue had to agree.

“You want me to stop?” Lance loosened his grip and gave Chris his big eyed, innocent face. “Because I could stop. If you wanted me to.”

Fucking prick. If his hands hadn’t been so full of Lance’s butt, Chris would have yanked on his ears until he squeaked. Instead, he took a deep breath, summoned every ounce of indifference he could muster, and shrugged in what he hoped was a nonchalant, man-about-town sort of way, but which, he suspected, more closely resembled a convulsion. “Whatever. Suit yourself.”

“Maybe,” Lance said, releasing Chris’ dick entirely and reaching into one of his own pockets, “maybe you’d rather, oh, I don’t know, do something a little different?” He pulled out a tube of lube and a couple of condoms and slapped them down on the bed.

Bastard. Sneaky, shithead bastard. “If you think I’m going to let you fuck me after your little display in front of the guys, you’ve got another think coming. They’re going to be mocking me about that for months.”

“Well. That’s not quite what I had in mind.” Lance smiled, slow and sexy, then leaned back, grinding his ass into Chris’ hands. “But, if you’re not interested . . .”

Oh, to hell with it. Pride could wait for another day. Seizing Lance behind the knees, Chris tipped him backward onto the bed. “Get your fucking pants off.”

For once in his life, Lance did what he was told. He was buck naked and face down in less than a minute with his clothes folded in a neat little pile on the end of the bed, and he’d manage it with considerably more grace than Chris, who had gotten his pants as far as his knees and his t-shirt up to his armpits, but then stalled when his elbows were suddenly taken hostage by the stretchy fabric and wedged against the sides of his head. All he could do was wiggle around on the bed like a mud-less worm and yell at Lance to stop laughing and give him a hand. When he’d finally untangled himself from his traitorous clothes -- with absolutely no help from Lance, who was still snickering like someone who didn’t realize how close he was to having a pitcher-full of syrup massaged into his scalp and possibly even his nostrils -- he was breathless and cranky, and he was pretty sure he was going to have bruises on his biceps. So where the hell were the shoddy manufacturing standards people were always complaining about? You could hog tie a wildebeest with that t-shirt, you could tie it to your granny’s left ankle and dangle her from the Empire State Building in a gale force wind and reel her back in hale and hearty and ready to bake you a batch of toll house cookies for afternoon tea. The thing was indestructible.

He gave Lance a vicious pinch on the butt to let him know that his lack of sympathy was not going to be forgotten, but the choked, moany sound that escaped Lance’s throat drove any thoughts of immediate revenge completely out of his head. God, Lance had a fantastic butt. Chris ran his hands over it, reveling in the weight of it against his hands, the silk-smooth skin that felt all burny and beach-warmed, like maybe the sun really did shine out of Lance’s ass. It was one of the most fuckable asses he’d ever met, and he’d wanted to fuck it forever, so why the hell was he just sitting around playing patty cake with it.

He reached for the lube, but Lance shook his head and mumbled something that sounded like, “No, father” which totallycreeped him out. Daddy fantasies. Ew. 

“Hey, no, I’m not into that shit.”

Lance peered over his shoulder at him. “What shit?”

“You called me ‘father.’ That’s gross. I don’t do daddy stuff.”

“I said, ‘don’t bother.’ What are you doing back there, anyway? Why aren’t you fucking me? Get that condom on and let’s go!”

“Well, pardon me for taking a moment to slick you up, fuckhead,” Chris said, waving the lube in front of Lance’s face. “Keep your damn shirt on.”

Lance reached back, snatched the tube out of his hand and threw it across the room where it ricocheted off the mirror and into a tureen of leftover scrambled eggs. “I said don’t bother.”

“But--“

“I already took care of it. C’mon. Get busy.” He wiggled his butt enticingly.

“You took care of it? What do you mean, you took care of it? When did you take care of it?” Chris grabbed hold of Lance’s butt cheeks, parted them, and thrust an unceremonious finger into his ass. Sure enough, slippery as a greased piglet. “Oh, fuck me. You did.”

“You’re a master of the romantic moment, I have to say.”

“What the fuck, Lance? You planned this?”

“And you appear to have a firm grasp of the obvious, too.”

“What was the lube for, then?”

“Dramatic effect? Look, your finger is great and all, really, I’m enjoying it immensely, but if you don’t replace it with your dick in the next thirty seconds, I’m going to throw on a robe and go find the guy who delivered breakfast, because I think he might actually fuck me some time this century--. Ohhhh, oh shit, holy jesus!”

“There, see? Fingers can be nice, too.” Chris grinned at Lance’s writhing body. “I was always good with my hands.”

Lance gave him the bird, but mitigated it with a sobby little noise of agreement into the quilt.

“Here, make yourself useful.” Chris stuffed the condom into Lance’s hand. “Open this.”

For a second he thought Lance might be too far gone to have heard him, but then he was yanking and twisting the condom wrapper, and every time he tugged his ass tightened around Chris’ finger in a most promising way. Maybe he’d give Lance the other condom to open while he fucked him.

“For someone with so much experience, you sure suck at the details,” he said, ripping the condom away from Lance’s scrabbling fingers. “Amateur.”

Holding the wrapper between thumb and forefinger, Chris ripped it open with his teeth and slid it on one-handed. He licked Lance’s back a couple of times to get rid of the taste, long, slow swipes along his spine, and was rewarded by more of the gaspy, desperate sounds that were starting to give Chris the same high he’d felt when he’d nailed his firstollie back when he was learning to skate. His board had been a gift from Bev for his fourteenth birthday, second hand, but oh, man, he’d loved that thing. His feet had barely connected with the pavement for six months straight. It had finally met its end under the wheels of two ton semi when he’d been attempting some jackass stunt that he’d have slapped the shit out of Justin for even thinking about. He’d had a lot of boards since then, but that one had been special -- mean, sweet and sensitive to gentlest pressure. Much like Lance, he thought in amusement as Lance spread his legs wider and then moaned indignantly when Chris removed his finger.

“Okay, c’mon, you lazy fucker. On your knees.”

Lance ignored him and rolled onto his back, looking more than a little pissed. Whatever. This worked, too. But first things first. Chris stroked Lance’s dick a couple of times to keep him happy, then climbed off the bed and retrieved the lube from its nest of congealed eggs.

“What the hell are you doing? You’re driving me crazy here! I told you, I don’t need that. I’m good to go here!”

“Indulge me, okay? I’m--“

“Fine. What the fuck ever. Give it here,” Lance snapped, snatching the lube away. Chris thought he was going to chuck it across the room again and got ready to intercept, but Lance grabbed hold of Chris’ dick instead and squeezed a good two thirds of the tube’s contents all over it. “There. Happy now?”

“God damn it! That’s just. Oh, for fuck’s sake! Will you still let me fuck you if I beat the snot out of you?”

“No.”

“Okey dokey, then. Hope you weren’t too fond of this.” Retrieving Lance’s t-shirt from the edge of the bed, he swabbed most of the goop off his dick.

“Hey! Cut that out! I like that shirt!” Lance lunged forward in a belated rescue attempt, but Chris toppled him backwards and hoisted his legs in the air.

“Oh, stop whining. I’ll buy you a new one. I’ll buy you six new ones. Twenty-five. And they’ll all say, ‘ Hi, my name’s Lance Bass and I’m the most annoying lay on the planet.’”

“Yeah, well. Oh. Um. Mmm.” As Chris slid into him, the frown lines on Lance’s forehead smoothed out and his lips curved into a smile so completely, utterly, disarmingly unguarded that Chris had to close his eyes and think about Lou in a Speedo to make sure he didn’t do something embarrassing, like cry or come or break into a rousing rendition of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. It had all been worth it, he thought, every moment of discomfort and embarrassment; all the months and years of holding back and looking the other way and pretending he didn’t want to string each and every one of Lance’s boyfriends up by their genitals; the two billion and four erotic dreams he’d woken from hard and sad and wracked with guilt. Every last second of self-doubt and regret, washed away by that single brilliant smile.

Now Lance’s hands were on him, though, pulling, pushing, poking, petting and Lance was arching upward and mumbling, “Don’t stop, don’t stop, oh, Chris, c’mon, move” like a mantra, and when he did, about the only thing he could think about was that Lance might suck at the details but he totally rocked at the main event.

And then it was just skin and heat and sweat, the fantastically perfect fit of his dick in Lance’s ass as Chris pounded into him, and the low, sweet soundtrack of Lance’s porny mutterings at every thrust. A full body shudder rolled through Lance’s muscles like an electric current, jolting Chris at every point of contact, and then Chris was coming, flying high, higher even that that day so many years ago when he’d sailed off his skateboard, out of the path of the oncoming semi, over the hood of the tomato-red Honda Civic with the wooden crucifix dangling from the rearview mirror and into the relatively forgiving embrace of the yew hedge on the other side of the road. 

When he could finally breathe again, Chris rolled off Lance and snuggled in close. Nap time. Sweet Jesus, good sex was more exhausting than a three hour rehearsal with new choreography.

Judging by the slant of sunlight through the window, it was late afternoon the next time he opened his eyes. Lance was lying next to him, propped up on one elbow and watching him. He was fully dressed, and he smelled like expensive soap, the visible bits of his skin glowing pink from a recent shower. It made Chris feel grubby and stinky.

“I’ll bet that screw ‘em and fall into a coma trick goes over really well with the ladies,” Lance said.

“Maybe it does. Don’t believe everything you read.”

“Uh huh.” Lance ran his hand lightly over Chris’ chest and down to his belly which was kind of a sticky mess at the moment, but Lance didn’t seem to care.

“Or everything Joey tells you.”

“Joey tells me I should stop messing about and settle down.” 

“See?”

“With you.” 

“Oh. Well. You can believe some of the things Joey tells you. One or two.”

“Okay.” Lance smiled that brilliant smile again, and Chris felt a dangerous catch in his chest and a tingling in his eyes, so he raised his leg and farted to dispel the maudlin mood. 

“Charming. So. Tell me. Now that you’re my boyfriend, who’s going to write me all those helpful letters to let me know what an ass you are?”

“I think perhaps a periodic reminder of what a great catch you’ve landed might be more in order, since you seem to have such a crappy short-term memory.” 

“Oh, right. Of course. Lucky me. I’ve managed to bag the stud who held his elementary school record for longest sustained burp three years running.”

“I make a mean omelette, too.”

“If you like them with raisins.”

“That was just the once, and I thought they were olives. I play a mean game of hockey.”

“You cheat at cribbage.”

“It’s impossible to cheat at cribbage. You’re just a lousy card player.”

“I’m good enough to know there aren’t five aces in a deck of cards.”

“I’m handsome and debonair.”

“You’re about as debonair as a package of smokies.”

“I have a lot of money.”

“So do I. And if I run out, Joey’ll give me some of his.”

“I’m good with my hands.” Chris said, and it was impossible not feel a little smug when Lance sighed happily andscooched a little closer. 

“Mm. Yes, you are. You really are. But you’re right. My short-term memory’s a bitch.” He licked a couple of lazy circles in the hollow of Chris’ neck and slid his fingers a little lower. “Maybe you better show me again.”

 

\- End-


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